Customers turn to their own trip advisors …each other
October 13, 2005
It’s hardly a coincidence that several travel PR execs have recently and separately asked me what their clients can do about sites such as tripadvisor.com .
It seems consumers are writing about their clients and they don’t like what they see.
This, of course, is a growing trend. According to Forrester Research, almost a third of US travellers who book online are members of what Forrester calls Emotive Networks “interconnected groups of consumers engaged in communication and support” often involving forums, bulletin boards and other types of opinion sites.
The bottom line is the traditionally-minded travel PR can do very little - if their over-whelming inclination is to control the message in an old-fashioned marketing sense.
However that doesn’t mean they can’t influence the direction of the conversation by joining in and providing open and honest assistance to the online traveller.
At least these enquiries show they have become aware of the size of the issue. The next step is to start actively listening to consumer opinions. The skills required to participate ought to follow.
As Bob Garfield says in this week’s AdAge:
The credibility of disinterested feedback is at the very heart of such Web offerings as tripadvisor.com, Amazon.com reader reviews, the buyer/seller ratings on eBay and about a quitrillion other online sources.“There’s a conversation going on about your brand in the open. You can either join it or not,” says Jeff Jarvis, Internet guru and blogger at Buzzmachine.com.